Punch: Punch (15.1848)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

171

LORD BROUGHAM'S PAMPHLET;

in twelve drops.

1 e have distilled Lord Brougham,
to be taken in Punch, and present
to the world the quintessential
properties of the philosopher and
statesman. We purchased A Letter
to Lord Lansdowne, on the French
Revolution (a very thick and heavy
epistle, price 4?.). and proceeded to
extract the essence. After this
fashion—for Punch has no secrets—
did we catch and hold the volatile
spirit of his Lordship's wisdom.

We first chopped the pamphlet
into pieces about the size of an
alderman's thumb. We then threw
the pieces into a brass skillet, with
a pint of aromatic vinegar—to nega-
tive the gall-nuts of the writer's ink
—with a pinch or two of rock-salt,
to supply the saline wants of the
original material. To this we added
a few drops of very old seal oil, with
the smallest touch of mace ; stirred
altogether, and placed on a French
charcoal brazier to stew and simmer.
We occasionally fanned the charcoal
with an old wig (turned inside out);
and removed the scum as it rose
with a tea-spoon of Queen Caro-
line's pattern.
When the chopped pamphlet was
done to a pulp, and the vinegar reduced to half a gill, we carefully
distilled it; and—in a quarter of a thimbleful of the blackest liquid-
possessed the condensed properties of Lord Brougham's many pages, i
We shall proceed to dip a clean new pen into the essence that, when
delivered to our page, shall present the whole of the pamphlet in a few
lines. And we modestly call upon the world to admire our combined
industry and ingenuity. It was, doubtless, held a good trick of magic
to imprison Ariel in a pine-apple (for so we read Shakspeare) ; but
what was this to the potency of Punch, who wraps up a whole
Brougham in a page P

We shall now begin our task; prescribiug our extracts of Brougham
to be taken in drops.

Drop I—English Reform. French Revolution.

I brought about the Reform Bill of 1832; I have consequently a clear
right to review the French Barricades of 1848. They refused to make
me a French citizen; I have, therefore—my old and excellent friend,
Lansdowne—I have, therefore, an inalienable privilege to abuse all
French citizens soever.

Drop II.—Vulgarity of the Revolution.

The Revolution was effected by unknown Frenchmen; by men who
never had a grandfather. My illustrious friend Arago was the solitary
meteor that coruscated among the National Guards. The Revolution
was effected by obscure men, who lighted the fires of rebellion from the
dark-lanthorns of their own reputations. They knew not the modesty
of patience: they had, possibly, never heard of a Brougham.

Drop III.—The English Press, and "Punch" in particular.

I speak of my own knowledge wjien I aver that Louis-Philippe was
struck from his throne by the baton of a miscreant hanging out in
Fleet Street. The illustrious exile may thank the Press, and that
miscreant in particular, that he was hooted from Paris. When Louis-
Philippe was compelled to call himself " Mr. Smith," the execrable
Punch may be considered his inexorable godfather!

Drop IV.—Crassitude of the Revolutionists.

In 1840, I wrote The Political Philosophy, at once and for ever
settling the destinies of nations. And yet a crass Parisian mob must
throw up barricades in the very face of that immortal work! The
Royal bed-chambers at the Tuileries and Eu were papered with early
•copies of that book, that an illustrious exile—awake and asleep—might
always have its pervading wisdom about him. _ Nevertheless, with
the work, by no means out of print—I repeat it, by no means out
of print—there is another Revolution ! Why, what is all human fore-
Bight worth? and—I may particularly ask it—what is now the worth of
those two volumes (post 8vo) of my Political Philosophy ?

Drop V.—The French Irritated by Waterloo.

The French were made sore by the memory of Waterloo. The more
crass they. They should have forgotten it. Had I been made a French
citizen, I would have denied the occurrence of such a battle. More : I
would have written a book—two, three, four books if necessary—to

disprove it.

Drop VI.—The Fatal Fault of Louis-Philippe.
The " illustrious exile " did not sufficiently attend to my advice. I
well remember when I said to him, "Louis, mon cher, I tell you what
you must do; you must put a patch or so upon the Constitution; you
must not appoint oil your Chamber of Deputies out of your placemen.
You have only 250,000 voters in all France. Therefore, mon cher,
extend the franchise; make them—for there is strength in caution, see
my Political Philosophy—m&ke them 250,001." Had this been done, I
should not, in February last, have embraced an " illustrious exile " at
Claremont.

Drop VII.—What the French have Lost.

Half-a-year asro, the French had ample liberty, and some to spare.
They had a wise Prince, and the inestimable benefit of commerce.
Their capital was frequently visited by an illustrious foreigner—he had
it in his intention to found a philosophic colony at Cannes—who is now
resolved to pass every vacation in Westmoreland.

Drop VIII.—Incidentally of Germany.
Speaking of France, I think Germany in a much worse condition. A
late fellow-labourer of yours —(my excellent friend)—never had, and
never proposes to have, a country seat in Germany. The Germans are
slower to warm than the French ; but iron that takes longest to melt,
takes longest to cool. I fear the imagination, when once roused, of the
Germans. I dread the Marseillaise when played with diabolic variations
upon the German flute.

Drop IX—The Ruler of France.
Whoever he is, he must have power. You must not parley with a
mob; bullets they may understand, but not word*. Think of the dregs
of the people—(when I was Harry Brougham the people, of course,
had no dregs)—rising to the top at Neuilly, and overwhelming a king
whose only faults were an excess of mercy and a too great contempt of
money : a man who thought of his country first, of his family next, and
perhaps of his own particular person afterwards.

Drop X.—The Press and the Multitude.

The Press, to repeat very significant words of mine—"has done it
all." A newspaper lives upon untruth. It accidentally—I will allow
as much—prints an error: it is too proud to swallow its words. There-
fore, it goes on swaggering and vomiting forth all sorts of sophistries
that honest men in gowns and wigs drop tears to think of. The Press
ought to be the bread-tree, protecting and supporting all who seek it.
My excellent friend, is it not rather the flaunting poppy, whose poison
creates dreams, and delusions, and idiotcy, and madness ? I am, how-
ever, not yet prepared to say that I would destroy the Press, repeal the
invention of printing, and bring in an Act of Oblivion that, in its first
clause, should swallow up the memory of John Guttenburg. I repeat
it: I am not yet prepared for this.

Drop XI.—An Exhortation.

And now, my old and excellent friend, let me not conclude without
affording you some consola'ion. When, from your high position—when
from the Pharos of Place—you look abroad and see the all but universal
storm; when you behold France still heaving from the tempest—
Germany iu billowy strife—Italy with uncooled lava—Sicily bubbling
liquid sulphur—when you behold all this, be not dismayed.

Drop XII.—The Remedy.

There is a man who is intimate with France, and can still her waves
into a duck-pond—who can make the billows of Germany smooth as
the native meerschaum—who can render Italian lava harmless as Italian
maccaroni—and with Sicilian sulphur tip the lucifers of all society for
the diffusion of political knowledge.

That man—it is a great happiness at the present time to think it—is
still spared us, and he is

Your old and excellent friend,

Henry Brougham.

discovering the longitude.

The Sea Serpent has been seen again; persons declaring it wa3
several miles in length. We should not at all wonder if it was a stray
column of one of Mr. Anste^'s speeches, for we know as a fact that
that gentleman has been at sea for a long time.